Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia has asked Syria to give up control of their chemical weapons and place them under international control, USA TODAY reported.
"We have passed our offer to (Syrian Foreign Minister Walid) Al-Muallem and hope to receive [a] fast and positive answer," Lavrov said on Monday.
Russia is willing to work "immediately" to convince Syria to give up their chemical weapons in order to prevent a strike from the U.S. Lavrov told reporters that Russia wants Syria to assemble all of its chemical weapons and place them in certain areas under international control, where they would be destroyed.
The Obama administration believes that Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime carried out a chemical weapons attack on civilians near Damascus on Aug. 21. that resulted in the death of 1,400 people. President Barack Obama has asked Congress to support a limited strike on Syria in response, and Assad has threatened retaliation if the U.S. goes through with any intervention.
Lavrov suggested the U.N. complete their investigation into the chemical weapons attack and present their conclusions to the U.N. Security Council.
"We have agreed to push for the soonest return of inspectors," he said.
Al-Muallem said his administration is cooperating with the U.N.'s investigation and is eager to convince the U.S. that the government is not responsible for the Aug. 21 attack. He added that Syria is prepared for "full cooperation with Russia to remove any pretext for aggression."
Syria, in addition to Angola, North Korea, Egypt, and South Sudan, has not signed the Chemical Weapons Convention -- an international agreement created in 1992 that prohibits the creation of chemical weapons.
In London, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Assad doesn't have many options when it comes to preventing a military strike.
"Sure. He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week," Kerry said. "Turn it over. All of it, without delay. And allow the full and total accounting for that. But he isn't about to do it."
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki elaborated on Kerry's comments.
"Secretary Kerry was making a rhetorical argument about the impossibility and unlikelihood of Assad turning over chemical weapons he has denied he used," Psaki said in a statement. "His point was that this brutal dictator with a history of playing fast and loose with the facts can not be trusted to turn over chemical weapons otherwise he would have done so long ago. That's why the world faces this moment."
